The Dream Herbs Sign to Metal Postcards

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Influenced by the 70s rock’n’roll pysch gods Pink Floyd (of which the name nods to), Cream and Hendrix. These young hippy hugging upstarts are full of life, teenage love and unreserved dreams for the future. Despite only having a handful of house party gigs under their belt, they already have the first E.P coming out on the indie record label Metal Postcards and are due to play with 35 Island at an experimental exhibition their putting on later in the year… so onto a pretty decent start then. The band will also be playing on the 27th August at Lamesfest a D.I.Y show. Read on to join on the dopedelic carpet ride of dreams…

(Photo Credits: benimasiala)

You formed in Walthamstow mainly playing at house parties, and having only been together a short time you’ve already been signed which is a HUGE achievement for a band so young and certainly no mean feat these days! So how did you first start out and what makes you so motivated to succeed over other bands like yourselves do you think?

Ben: Well me and Alex have known each other since school and have been playing music together since I was like 16 and he was like 12 so Syd and The Dream is new but has kinda been loosely floating around for a while. We started writing as Syd and The Dream in November last year after our last band died. My motivation just comes from music being the only thing that gives me any kind of fulfilment, school and all that shit never did it for me. I wanna succeed just because I like the music we make and I want it to be heard.
Alex: I’m poor and I see bare man making music that doesn’t represent me so I have to make my music.
Jordan: I’m from Dagenham but I was always about their studio working on stuff so they just asked me to play bass.

You are due to release your début EP on Metal Postcards Records (not sure of the title of this, just the songs. Can you fill me in on this too? Plus the release date?) anymore recordings scheduled?

Alex: I want to be doing this for a long time so I want to try and record something new at least every month. Don’t want it to get stagnant.
Ben: Yeah it’s not even really an EP we kind of want it just be an introduction to the band and not care about how many songs it would take, we landed on three which would be kind of a bump for an EP. We decided it’s gonna be called ‘Welcome to the Fuzzbrain’ and we’re just waiting to lock down a few more things to get the release date but it’s looking like mid to late August. I always wanna do a live album because people kinda expect them to be shit and I don’t think ours would be as shit as people think. We probably just want to follow this lot of songs up with a few singles it’s just deciding which songs to pair.
Jordan: no comment.

What was the creative process for recording these songs?

Ben: Well we write, rehearse and record in our own studio filled with shit I’ve gathered over the last few years. It’s important to us that Syd and The Dream sounds like us in that we don’t want too many other heads involved outside of the people we know. Recording wise it was just about trying to get the sound that we have in the room down. We love volume so Alex always uses at least two amps and we spent a lot of time fucking about with pedals and where to send the effects. We also tried to be strict on overdubs because we don’t want to get some unrealistic studio sound and then sound completely different and shit as a live band. So we recorded everything live with one guitar overdub and two layered vocals but we don’t really know what we’re doing so the resulting sound is all us and our amateur DIY shit.

You can best be described as Psych/Shoegaze. Can you break down your style a little bit more for our readers?

Alex: Not shoegaze
Ben: Nah That’s funny because we don’t listen to that much shoegaze obviously I fuck with My Bloody Valentine but shoegaze is kinda a loose term that I wouldn’t put with us. Alex has been playing the blues since he was like 11 so that’s like his foundation but I’ve been obsessed with the stooges and nirvana and all that shit so that’s like what I learnt to play drums to. I guess we bonded over black flag and the grateful dead and obviously black sabbath so when we were writing these songs this was the sound that came naturally. It wasn’t a deliberate attempt to sound like anything it was a mixture of all sorts of shit.
Alex: anything we make is a product of our environment so all these things come through on our sound.
Jordan: groovy

And list a few of your ultimate music inspirations?

Alex: I listen to bare shit Crazy Titch (free Titch) Frank Zappa, Cream, Elton John, on that Black Keys first album right now and The Kinks top of my head shit.
Ben: The Velvet Underground and Grateful Dead obviously. Fugazi, Stooges, Funkadelic, 13th Floor Elevators, Ruff Sqwad, the Cramps, Jay Reatard, Charlie Parker, Black Sabbath, Bad Brains, Bikini Kill and a load of different drummers Max Roach is the King to me.
Jordan: Hendrix obviously, The Meters is a big one for all of us and Can.
Alex: it’s hard though still ask me tomorrow it might be different.
Ben: Captain Beefheart and Neu as well
Jordan: it’s whatever feeling you have at the time there’s so many.
Ben: Syd Barrett should be top.

Which new bands do you like at the moment?

Ben: Obviously I got love for things people are doing around me so 35 Island are on something else and The Kumari are a great band that’s just some good songwriting going on there. Diiv are an important band I don’t think they clock how many people rate them as highly they do but Bailey is a don hold it down g!
Jordan: We got Michelle who’s in our studio working on Deficit which is gonna be the one when that lands. I mostly listen to old shit though I hear some good shit around but I can’t put names to it. Oh and King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard.
Alex: I’m about Kano, Wiley all that shit BBK has been doing for a while a lot of Nasty crew.
Ben: let’s be real a lot of good shit has been coming outside of the band model for a while especially in London. The London sound we relate to isn’t exactly shoegaze bands that’s not where we’re from in London. We fuck with a lot of American bands though I fuck with Show Me The Body that’s some good shit and I saw this band a second ago called Skating Polly who were cool. Oh and our friend Laisa is always writing great songs you’ll be onto her real soon.

What’s your gig plans for the Summer?

Alex: to play some. We’re gonna shoot one long video for all three songs then release everything at once so there’s gonna be a launch show for that.
Jordan: we’re playing with everyone in 35 Island as part of an exhibition they’re putting on that should be the one.
Ben: we’re definitely gonna end up playing a show with the Kumari at some stage cos we’ve been talking about it for a while so that should be a good one.